Her cheeks blossomed beautifully, though she ducked her head quickly and turned away to hide her embarrassment. She had the right of it though. How was one to write out anything as staid as an invitation to dinner on Christmas Eve after the pure carnality of their encounter in the carriage?
How was he to have a civil conversation with her when all he wanted to do was kiss her senseless? Or bend her over that desk and have his way with her.
Her gaze followed his to the desk, and as if she could read his thoughts, her blush crept up her neck.
“Will you come?” she asked, fiddling nervously with a fountain pen. “For dinner?” she added, when he managed nothing more than a muted stare. “On Christmas Eve? I thought afterward, we could light the tree for the children and maybe sing a few carols.”
James hadn’t done any of those things since leaving Scotland. Maggie had tried to have him join her family, her brother or Astor cousins, since he’d been here, but he’d turned down her offers. Preferring what? The misery of his own company?
“No brothers?”
“Not one,” she told him. “I promise.”
“How did you manage that?”
“I told them I wanted to spend the evening alone with the children.” She peeked at him from beneath her lashes. “I’m sorry. You must be disappointed with me.”
“Never.”
“I only did so because I was afraid they might insist on being here to chaperone if they knew you were coming,” she told him. “I didn’t want them to ruin it.”
“For the children?”
“For us.”
CHAPTER 26
I declare to you that woman must not depend upon the protection of man, but must be taught to protect herself, and there I take my stand.
~ Susan B. Anthony
Those two tiny words filled James with satisfaction. He fiddled with the jeweler’s box in his pocket, the engagement ring he’d bought from Tiffany & Co. just that afternoon. He wasn’t sure why he’d brought the blue box with him. He certainly didn’t intend on proposing in her study on a Saturday afternoon.
Bugger it, he wasn’t planning on proposing until he was sure she’d accept him. But for this invitation—a major holiday with her family—she’d never offered the slightest indication that she’d changed her mind about marriage.
Hadn’t she said only the night before how she didn’t want to give her offspring the wrong impression? What kind of impression would a family Christmas together make?
“Are you sure you want me there?”
Prim nodded. “If you don’t have other plans. With Mrs. Preston, perhaps?”
“No, she’s spending the evening with her sister, then attending the midnight services at St. Patrick’s. She did invite me to come along, as she had in the past, but didn’t seem surprised when I excused myself.”
“You’ll come then?”
“I’d love to.”
Joy radiated from her but when her gaze drifted down to the desk, it slipped away. “There’s something else I’d like to ask, too, if you have some time?”
“Of course.”
“I’ve told you before how Fletcher left control of his fortune to me to oversee?”
“Aye.”
“I’ve taken on our personal finances quite handily,” she explained. “He’d had time enough before he passed to show me that much. For the past several months, I’ve been trying to educate myself more thoroughly on the other investments Fletcher left to me. Investments he made as a financier with both the bank and the fortune his maternal grandfather left him. But I’ve been having a difficult time making heads or tails of these reports and was hoping you might take a look at them for me.”
“I’m happy to help.” James sifted through the papers on the desk. “Who’s been keeping them all this time?”
